Wish quotes
4.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside wish — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"In my 20s I used to cry about why I wasn’t thinner or prettier, but I want to add that I also used to cry about things like: ‘I wish my hair would grow faster. I wish I had different shoes …"
"We do not wish success yet we obtain it. Always we find what we are not looking for. These words are too true not to become a proverb some day."
"Jo's breath gave out here, and wrapping her head in the paper, she bedewed her little story with a few natural tears, for to be independent and earn the praise of those she loved were the dearest wishes of her heart, and this seemed to be the first step toward that happy end."
"Riding turns 'I wish into 'I can'."
"I only wish the poets would say this too: love is of the body; not the body, but of the the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul!"
"There's nothing like a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end."
"The only rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your own responsibility, sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emotion."
"When I wish I was rich, then I know I am ill."
"Men live in glad obedience to the masters they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine."
"My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call 'education of the heart'."
"A mind wishing to benefit other people and other sentient beings is the very basis of peace and happiness."
"And there we all were, as invisible as you could wish to see."
"I wish they would remember that the charge to Peter was "Feed my sheep", not "Try experiments on my rats", or even "Teach my performing dogs new tricks"."
"I wish we didn't live in a world where buying and selling things seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them."
"if anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much at his service--with my sword--whenever he has leisure."
"By gum,' said Digory, 'Don't I just wish I was big enough to punch your head!"
"I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say "at last", I almost wish he had lived to write six books more as he had hoped to do — so much have I enjoyed it."
"And in truth (as I now see) I had the wish to put off my journey as long as I could. Not for any peril or labour it might cost; but because I could see nothing in the whole world for me to do once it was accomplished. AS long as this act lay before me, there was, as it were, some barrier between me and the dead desert which the rest of my life must be."
"There are always things that I think I wish I could have done better."
"[Michelle Obama] used to say to our friends, "Barack's exactly the kind of guy I want to be president. I just wish he didn't want to do it when I was married to him.""
